


The Hands-On Approach

by Defiler_Wyrm



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: (Referenced) - Freeform, Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Angst with a Happy Ending, Barebacking, Bottom Bucky Barnes, Bucky Barnes Needs a Hug, Bucky Barnes Recovering, Captain America: The First Avenger, Dehumanization, Enemas, Flashbacks, HYDRA Trash Party, Hurt Bucky Barnes, Hurt/Comfort, Hydra (Marvel), Identity Porn, Implied/Referenced Torture, Love Confessions, M/M, Not Captain America: Civil War (Movie) Compliant, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Protective Steve Rogers, Rape/Non-con Elements, Recovery, Red Room (Marvel), Self-Hatred, Skin Hunger, Touch-Starved, Waterboarding, Young Pierce Looks Like Steve Rogers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-24
Updated: 2018-04-24
Packaged: 2019-04-27 07:18:04
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,143
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14420358
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Defiler_Wyrm/pseuds/Defiler_Wyrm
Summary: When the Soviets take him, Sergeant Barnes is grateful no one will touch him.When the Red Room keeps it, the Winter Soldier will do anything for the only person who will touch it.When Steve Rogers saves him, Bucky wishes he deserved to be touched again.





	The Hands-On Approach

**Author's Note:**

> For the [Hydra Trash Meme prompt:](https://hydratrashmeme.dreamwidth.org/2271.html?thread=6013151#cmt6013151)
> 
> The Asset is dangerous & unpredictable so no one in Hydra wants to get close enough to touch it. They wear gloves to examine it, use a hose & sponge on a pole to wash it, and keep it sequestered away from its team on missions; they use batons, rifles, and whips to punish it. It's been this way since before the Asset was the Asset.
> 
> All this makes the Winter Soldier both desperate for human touch and highly fucked up about believing it's a disgusting, unwanted creature. After decades of this, someone (Pierce?) finally has the balls to get alone in a room with the Asset to rape it, and it's so touch-starved it sobs in bewildered relief and gratitude rather than violation or pain.
> 
>  
> 
> **You can skip to the recovery part by clicking[here]**

**Western Russia, 1946**

 

There’s no telling how long he’d been in this concrete hole. Barnes hadn’t seen the sun in what might be years—the sky at all, months, he was sure of it. It’d been just as long since they last put hands on him. The Soviets used to use their boots and fists to manipulate them, but the grimier he became over time, the less willing they were to touch him.

That didn’t mean he was off the hook. It just meant they got creative.

He knew twenty-seven stress poses by heart. He knew the difference between getting struck with the end of a club, the mid-shaft, and the haft. He knew the difference between cane and a whip. He knew the difference between having his head held underwater and having water poured over his cloth-draped face. (The latter had left him begging for mercy like nothing else ever had, offering to tell them anything they wanted to know. They hadn’t asked any questions. They hadn’t said a fucking word.)

When he found himself catching bits and pieces of Russian, once in a while he overheard them calling him “pretty.” That scared him more than anything but the water. For all the senseless torture and aimless misery they heaped on him day after night after day, there was one thing they still hadn’t done to him, and he shook in fear of it every time boot steps came near.

Hate bubbled up like oil from tar sands when his cell door opened and soldiers crowded inside. They reached for their batons instead of their flies and he relaxed, resigned to mere pain. Some of that hate was for himself as he thought for the six hundredth time, 

_ At least they won’t touch me tonight. _

  
  


**Siberia, 1988**

 

No one touched the Winter Soldier with bare hands.

The Asset was dangerous, they said. Unstable. Unpredictable. Not to be trusted. They pulled it out of the cryo chamber with leather and terrycloth barriers between themselves and its naked, shaking skin. They conducted examinations with forceps in gloved hands. They guided it around with catchpoles around its neck like a dog, or used leashes if it was muzzled. When it earned punishment, they used batons, whips, the butts of their rifles. On long missions, it rested in a different room from where its team slept. They even kept it clean at arm’s length: its masters chained it to a tile wall and used a hose and sponges on poles and a slender snaking tube that forced water into its insides.

It saw the way they looked at it. They feared it, but it disgusted them. The Asset was disgusting. An untouchable creature unworthy of the warmth of another body—oh, pressing close to a target to wrap its unfeeling metal hand over a mouth and snap a neck didn’t count. There was something deeply, hideously wrong with it; it knew this as instinctively as it knew it must obey.

Was it ugly under the mask? It knew its own reflection, even if they seldom let it see; the face staring back at it was strong-jawed, pale of skin and eye, but it didn’t know if this was a handsome face or not; it must not be, the Asset thought, the way its masters stared.

Where man and metal met was a hideous gnarl of twisted scars. They told it once that it had itself to blame for that: the Asset had tried to reject this marvel Hydra had bestowed upon it and torn at its flesh, and that was what made the long, ugly scars. Its own ingratitude. The Asset tried very hard to be grateful. It didn’t want to get any uglier. 

Hydra agents recoiled from the arm worse than they did the Asset’s flesh one. It didn’t know what to make of that, considering the arm was Hydra’s technological triumph. Maybe they were afraid of what it could do. Maybe the vile nature of the Asset itself has corrupted it somehow: it’s not the arm itself that revolts them, but that it’s part of the Asset.

It had always been this way. It had always been a repulsive creature not meant to stain the hands of human beings. It knew this better than it knew its favorite gun.

Through the years the Winter Soldier had a number of handlers. It remembered none of them beyond a need to show obedience. It couldn’t remember its handler now. Trying to recall faces, voices, frames resulted in only static. It had been washed thoroughly and muzzled. Now it waited for its handler in a quiet room, tethered to a low table by a chain around its neck. Along each wall stood two senior operatives training guns on its chest and head. A technician stood by with sedatives as well. 

It could probably kill everyone in the room before any of them made a fatal shot. If there could be a fatal shot. The Asset wasn’t sure whether or not it can even die.

Not that it’d thought about dying.

Three sets of footsteps approached from the hall. Three sharp raps and one of the operatives opened the door. A man came into the room: stately, tall, dressed like an American of means and importance. Spectacles, sandy, hair, blue eyes, his face—

The Asset felt dizzy. Its chest felt strange. His face was—

The man smiled. Two elite Hydra soldiers followed in his wake. The operatives in the room stood taller, and the Asset tried to do the same, but it was slow, too slow, his  _ face _ —

“At ease,” the man said in English with a voice like whiskey and honey. The operatives stood down, lowering their shotguns at long last. The Asset was too slow again in relaxing. It stared, it  _ knew _ it shouldn’t stare, but there was something about this man that made it want to weep for...for some distant, alien emotion it couldn’t place. “So this is our ghost. Hydra’s finest asset...the fabled Winter Soldier.”

The Asset stood even taller. The man didn’t sound revolted; he sounded  _ impressed _ , and it made the Asset want to preen. It wanted to get on its knees. It wanted...things it couldn’t describe. It wanted to be closer to this man, always, never let him out of its sight again. 

(Again?)

“Welcome, Mister Undersecretary,” the technician cut in, also in English. The Asset felt a flare of hate for the whitecoat for making the man look away from it. “Yes, this, this is it, in flesh and metal. We are so thrilled to have you onboard Winter Soldier Project. Do you want to inspect it?”

“It?” the Undersecretary asked, glancing between the technician and the Asset.

The tech nodded. “Always important to remember, Asset is not person.”

The Asset did not nod in agreement as a person would have done.

“I see. Yes, I’d like that very much. I’ve read all the literature on this one. Specs, history, deployment, containment, I must say I’m impressed with what the Red Room has done here.”

The tech puffed up proudly. The Asset did not allow itself to do the same, though perhaps its chest rose a bit. “Thank you, Mister Undersecretary. It is result of many years of trial, error, and, not to be vain, brilliance.” He squinted at the Soldier then, warningly. “But be careful, sir. Asset can be unpredictable. Violent. Best to stay out of arm’s reach.”

The Undersecretary took a few steps towards the Asset, and it struggled not to shift its weight, though it couldn’t identify what its anticipation was for. “Mm, yes, I’ve read that. No one touches it?”

The technician made a face. “Not if we don’t have to, sir.”

There it was. The Asset’s shoulders fell. This Undersecretary would find out now what a disgusting beast it was, and he would never smile at it again.

“I see. You’ll find, Doctor Ilyich, that I am the kind of man who favors a hands-on approach.” The Undersecretary kept walking forward. Now he was within two meters and closing in. The operatives at the walls grew tense. “Hello, Soldier. Do you know who I am?”

A sibilant whisper of a name half-formed in the Asset’s mouth, then trickled away like grains of sand. It shook its head.

“My name is Alexander Pierce, Undersecretary of Defense for the United States,” the man said; and then, just as conversationally: “Hail Hydra.”

The room chorused  _ Hail Hydra! _ back to him, Asset included.

“I’m your new handler,” Pierce said. “It’s a real treat to get to work with you.”

The Asset’s knees weakened. Why? Was it malfunctioning from cryo? Had it been drugged? Its chest felt strange, too, all tight and warm. Looking at Pierce made its breath come faster but it stood as still as it possibly good, save for tipping its head and eyes down in deference to its new master.

This time Pierce addressed the technician again. “There’s something I’ve been wondering ever since I first read the timeline of the Asset’s acquisition. Is there a need for the mask?”

Dr. Ilyich shifted uncomfortably. “Muzzle is for safety. Asset has been known to bite.”

Pierced laughed. The sound was wonderful. “I don’t think you’re going to bite me, are you, my dear?”

The Asset shook its head, unable to form words. The chain at its neck rattled with the movement. And then Pierce was raising his hands—his bare, ungloved hands—to feel along the sides of the mask, through the Asset’s hair, to find the clasp, muttering, “I just need to know—”

The muzzle came free and the Asset immediately ducked its head. Its hair fell in a curtain to hide its ugliness from its handler. But then it felt something warm on its chin, something warm and dry and shocking: its handler was  _ touching its face, _ tilting it back up so he could look at it. It couldn’t fight down a lost little mewl; the sensation was far too much. The Asset closed its eyes so it wouldn’t have to see the revulsion on that wonderful, safe face. Greedily, it just wanted to savor the touch of someone else’s skin for what felt like the very first time.

“My God,” Pierce breathed, “it’s true.”

Curiosity should not burn through the Asset’s gut, but it did anyway. In less than five minutes this man had turned the Asset’s entire world on its ear and damn its ingratitude again, but it wanted to know more. But then Pierce’s hands were on its face and it was making another wounded sound and hoping fervently it wouldn’t stop.

It was bewildering. New sensations were always bad ones. It didn’t make these noises when actually injured. What was wrong with it? What was this man doing to it to make it come undone and want more?

“I’d like to inspect the Asset in private,” Pierce announced to the room. The guards hesitated, torn between protocol and a direct order.

“Mister Undersecretary, we cannot leave you alone with it,” the technician blustered. “Safety protocol—”

“I said I’d like the room.” Pierce’s voice was one of a commander. The technician shut his mouth and the guards shuffled away.

The Asset blinked at the door’s click. They were alone. No guns, no batons, no tranqs waiting to take it down when it disobeyed. Its confusion melted— _ everything _ melted—at the feel of its handler’s fingers moving through its hair, across its scalp.

Pierce was still looking it over with a little smile that felt like sunlight. “They treat you like a hound,” he remarked, slipping a hand down the Asset’s chain. “That’s all well and good, but I’ve found a dog won’t bite its master’s hand if it expects a good scratch behind the ears instead of a blow to the head. You’re a good hound, aren’t you?”

The Asset nodded. It would be so good for its handler. It would be anything he wanted it to be.

“I thought so. Let’s have it, then, let me see you. Let’s see what we’re working with here.” He plucked at the Soldier’s one-armed leather jacket. 

Sluggishly, the Asset understood the order to strip, and hurried to comply. The chain made things difficult, so Pierce unlocked the padlock at the table (of course he had the key) long enough to free the jacket. Soon the Asset stood nude before its master. It lifted its flesh hand to try to hide the ugly scarring at its metal shoulder, only to have its wrist pulled away.

Piece inspected its body the way technicians did, but oh, it was so different. Instead of cold steel forceps, he used his hands. The Asset’s body felt like a brand. Warm, strong, dry hands moved across its chest, tested the firmness of its muscles, and it flexed for him. Pierce felt every plate on its arm and pressed fingertips into its back to feel where the arm connected to its ribs and spine deep within. He cupped and pulled the Asset’s genitals, and  _ that _ made it gasp, because it felt like blazing fire sparking in its gut.

“I see they don’t have you on saltpeter,” Pierce chuckled. The Asset followed his glance down to where he was holding its penis up away from its body. It was...reacting. “Do you know if they ever have you use this? If they do it’s not in any files I read.” At the Asset’s head shake, he tutted. “Seems a waste.”

He moved on and it was very difficult not to be frustrated at the loss of that touch. But its handler continued on, manipulating its body as he saw fit, like the world’s most dangerous doll. He smoothed a hand up the Asset’s spine and pushed until it sank down, bent over the table with its feet squared. The next touches were across its buttocks. This position was familiar; this was for punishment, for canes and chains. It whimpered, uncertain what it had done wrong.

Instead of pain, it received yet another new sensation: fingertips rubbing down the cleft of its ass. It gasped again, and its penis reacted more.

“What about this?” Pierced asked as he rubbed circles on the Asset’s anus with the pad of a thumb. “Do they put things into you here?”

The Asset’s throat was dry. It was too much. It felt like a gunshot wound—equal in intensity, only  _ yes please more _ instead of pain. “The small hose. It, they, for cleaning. With water.”

“And that’s all? Nothing else?”

It had never contemplated anything else. The small hose was pretty miserable; the prospect of anything else sounded just as bad. Then again, those fingers felt pretty damn amazing, and it had no long-term memory, so what did it know? It shook its head. “No sir.”

Pierce tutted again. “That’s an even greater waste. They cleaned you before the meeting as I requested, correct?”

“Yes sir,” the Asset sighed.

“Perfect. Hold still. I like to be very thorough with my inspections.”

The Asset obeyed. There were sounds behind it: something being withdrawn from a pocket and set on the table; a belt being opened; a zipper being pulled down; a shuffle of skin on skin; a jar being unscrewed. The sharp, medicinal smell of petrolatum hit the Asset’s nostrils. And then the fingers were back, and they were cold and wet. The Asset whimpered and tensed but soon it was panting for breath. Its handler’s fingers felt good, so good. It wanted...it still couldn’t say what. It just wanted more.

Blessedly, it got more.

Pierce steadied his free hand on the Asset’s hip and pushed with the other. The Asset groaned as it was breached. The hose had hurt going in and it was half as thin as these two fingers, but it had also loosened the way. There was a place inside that pinched terribly against the intrusion. The Asset whimpered again. Pierce shushed it and told it to be good, be good and take it, so it did. Then his fingers breached the inner ring, and there was a flood of— not cramp-inducing water this time, but pleasure and warmth.

“There you go, good boy. Just a little more and you’ll be ready. Keep breathing.” 

The fingers drew back and when they returned they were three strong. It burned terribly. The Asset could hike ten klicks on a broken ankle to an extraction point, though, and it could damn well take this as well. It steadied its breath and let the pain ebb away. Instead of a low-burning ache, this pain left something bright and amazing in its wake.

Pierce spread his fingers a few times before the Asset realized it was being dilated for something. It didn’t know what for; it didn’t  _ care _ , so long as its handler kept touching its bare, quivering skin. Soon he seemed satisfied and withdrew his fingers for good. More sounds: wetness from petrolatum being...scooped out of a container, it guessed, and then wet almost-cracks of skin. Heat crowded up against the Asset’s rump before the blunt touch of something thicker and smoother than a finger pressed into its hole. A tiny rivulet of inchoate horror snaked its way through the haze of bliss fuzzing the Asset’s head as it realized what was happening. Then its handler’s cock slid up into its ass in one slick push, and it couldn’t think of anything at all.

A brain-dead moment later, Pierce was holding its hips with both hands and rocking into the Asset’s body. It wasn’t an idiot; it knew what sex was. It just hadn’t ever contemplated being involved in it. And now that it was, it was beyond words, beyond coherent thought, beyond anything but writhing and mewling on the table in a pleasure so intense it felt like punishment. Pierce spoke low words of praise and encouragement as his hips worked an unhurried rhythm.

“I can’t believe no one else has done this,” he was saying. “So hot and tight. So perfect. It’ll just be our secret, okay? I don’t want anyone else getting ideas. This hole is just for me. Understood?”

It took several gasps for breath to whimper out a “Yes sir.” It got deeper, harder thrusts for its efforts.

“It’s okay if you make noise, though. Look at you, you’re a goddamn wreck. You were just waiting for this.”

The Asset didn’t know how to answer, so it didn’t. Instead, it let its handler know how grateful he was with wordless cries of pleasure and clumsy rolls of its hips.

Minute after minute ticked by, yet the Asset lost track of time. It was too good to count the minutes. The chain bit into its skin from neck to hip but it didn’t care. Its own penis was hard and aching and wet at the tip; its foreskin caught the slickness and spread it across the table. Over time, Pierce sped up, until he was pounding the Asset with loud pops of skin on skin, and the room stank of sweat and Vaseline. The Asset could swear it was on the precipice of something incredible when Pierce pulled out entirely.

“No, please,” the Asset blurted before it could stop itself. 

“Already a greedy slut,” Pierce chuckled. He rolled it over, pushed its knees up, and ordered it to hold them. Once it complied, he took the Asset by the shoulders and pushed back into it. “That’s better. I want to see that perfect face.”

The Asset’s jaw dropped. But it was  _ hideous _ . It was a disgusting creature, and its handler was  _ touching _ it,  _ fucking _ it,  _ complimenting _ it, and none of it made any sense. A dam broke. Something stung the Asset’s eyes and all of a sudden tears were welling up from them.

Pierce’s thumb swept them away from one cheek. The gesture’s gentle intimacy was a strange counterpoint to his cock sliding into the Soldier’s ass. “It’s okay, I’m here. You can trust me. You’ll always obey me, won’t you.”

It nodded, rattling the chain again.

“Whose are you?”

“Hydra’s,” it answered automatically.

The Undersecretary barked out a surprised laugh. “Can’t argue that. Whose hole is this?” He punctuated the question with several sharp thrusts.

“Yours, sir,” the Asset groaned. Its handler seemed to like that answer better. He fucked it hard and fast then, petting its cheeks, groping its cock and hard abs. It ached inside; its skin burned. Pierce took its left hand and made it wrap metal fingers around its own cock. The warm metal was cool compared to his skin, a smooth, unyielding shock. When it didn’t seem sure what to do, its handler moved its hand up and down, and then it caught on quickly enough. They raced each other to some distant-feeling end that nevertheless snuck up on the Asset like a tiger in the snow: whiteout pleasure built sharply and then crashed into it, over it. It felt itself yelp as its scrotum pulled tight and it shot hot liquid onto its chest and belly in great white stripes. When the moment was over every point of contact felt like it was being crushed beneath a great weight—yet its handler kept driving into its ass.

But not for long. Pierce’s thrusts and breath became erratic. He must have crested into the same great blizzard when he grunted loud and wet warmth spread inside the Asset’s rectum. They stayed there panting for breath for a few quiet minutes. Pierce rolled his hips several times more until he softened and pulled out. He sniffed, tucked his cock away, and nodded to himself.

“Dress yourself,” he ordered. Once again he helped with the chain so that the Asset could get into its jacket. When it was done, and still wavering on its feet, he pet its sweaty hair proudly. It studiously ignored the feel of semen dripping down its inner walls.

“Good dog.”

The Asset would take that. It glanced down submissively, but its face ached to smile.

Pierce used his reflection in a framed lithograph to set his hair to rights before knocking on the door. A moment later the whitecoat returned to the room, looking unnerved. To judge by how quickly he returned to the room, the Asset estimated he must have been within earshot—thus more or less witness to what happened there.

“I trust your inspection was, um…” He struggled for words, flinching around the face as if trying to contain some terrible reaction and doing poorly. “Satisfactory?”

“More than. I’d like a live demonstration of the Asset’s combat capabilities as well, as soon as you can arrange that,” Pierce told him. 

The Asset straightened, sobering. Hopefully, it would have adequate time to prepare.

Dr. Ilyich nodded. “Yes, of course, Mister Undersecretary. And will you be implementing any, em...new containment protocols?”

Pierce chuckled. “I’ll reserve the right to meet with it alone, for debriefing, or…” His eyes raked across the Asset’s form. “Anything else I might deem necessary. As its handler, I reserve this as a sole right. All other personnel will follow maintenance S.O.P.”

“Thank you, sir, I will have this filed. If you are...fully...satisfied, we should bring Asset to prepare for demonstration.” The technician’s grin looked more like a grimace.

“Yes, Dr. Ilyich, that will be all, thank you.”

And with that, Pierce and his entourage marched away.

Once the Undersecretary was out of sight, the technician leveled a glare of mortified revulsion at the Asset. “What did you do, you disgusting thing?” he hissed in Russian.

“I complied with my handler’s orders.” The Asset allowed its voice to carry an edge, just to warn the whitecoat: it may belong to Hydra, but it answered to Pierce now.

The technician huffed unhappily about it, but what could anyone say to that? Instead, he and the guards led the Asset off to prepare for its next challenge. 

It knew the ecstasy of skin contact now. It would be good for its new handler. If it was a hideous beast, it would be the best and most obedient hideous beast Hydra had ever seen.

 

 

**Brooklyn, 2015**

 

Bucky has a lot of nervous habits. Among them is what his caseworker calls body insecurity. Though he shares his living space with Steve, he wears long sleeves and pants everywhere but his own closed-and-locked room, undressing only in solitude. They haven’t replaced the bathroom mirror Bucky broke months ago. It isn’t that he doesn’t know his own reflection. He  _ does _ , that’s the problem, and he’s disgusted by what he sees.

For a while, Steve assumed this meant he had a problem seeing skin in general, until one morning he’d staggered into the kitchen to find Steve in his underpants and just shrugged about it.

“It’s not  _ your  _ skin that bothers me,” he’d told him, and also “No I don’t wanna talk about it.” Steve had dropped it, blessedly, but became more relaxed about his own clothing or lack thereof.

But God, he knows he doesn’t deserve it, but he wishes Steve would just touch him. It was bad enough knowing he was a loathsome creature; knowing Steve, of all people, knew it too was almost too much to bear.

Because Steve does keep him at arm’s length. His memories of the days before the war are fuzzy, but he’s pretty certain they’d never been hands-off. They’d walked with arms around each other, never shied away from casual brushes day to day, hell, they’d shared a bed more than half the time they lived together. At least that’s how he remembers it. Now, sitting on the couch with the two spaces between them feeling like a thousand miles, he’s not so sure it’s not just wishful thinking.

If it’s not all the horrific things he’s done, then surely it’s because he’s a wild, unpredictable, violent beast. He overreacts when startled and breaks furniture during nightmares; he has fits of unreasoning rage when the horrors of what he’s done and had done to him become too much to bear. They’ve hung a lot of new drywall, and Steve’s had to talk to cops that showed up at their door more than once. He doesn’t understand why Steve doesn’t just throw him out. Why he jerks back and apologizes when he so much as brushes a finger against Bucky’s by accident is no wonder.

So here he is, six feet and an ocean’s length away from the man who saved him from Hydra twice, and he can’t concentrate on the documentary’s placid British narration for all the morass of self-loathing and longing he’s drowning in. Gradually he becomes aware of two things: he’s shivering from nerves, and Steve is watching him instead of the TV.

“You cold?” Steve asks quietly. He has that look about him, that worried golden retriever look, that tells Bucky he’s really just being given an out but Steve knows better.

He takes the out with a nod. Steve gets up and makes for the thermostat. So willing to avoid it. So willing to avoid  _ Bucky _ with the wide berth a dangerous, nauseating animal like him deserves. He shakes harder and cracks open like a spider’s egg sac.

“How can you fucking stand it?” he spits, staring at his own drawn-up knees.

Steve stops in his tracks. “Stand what?”

“ _ Looking at me, _ ” he hisses. “You know what I am. How can you fucking stand to look at me knowing that?”

“Knowing you’re what, Bucky?” 

Something about that patient, careful tone sets him off worse. He’s escalating, he can feel it, he can hear his therapist, Dr. Samson, trying to guide him through de-escalation, but he doesn’t have de-escalation in him right now. He spits out his hate like a mouthful of oil. “Disgusting. Revolting, unhinged, unstable, barely fucking human if even that much. I’m fucking hideous inside and out, Steve, and you just sit there letting me touch your things and sleep in your home and how do you  _ stand it? _ ”

“Bucky. Look at me.” He does. Steve’s lost the sad puppy face. Now he looks  _ pissed _ . Telegraphing his movements, he strides over, crouches down, and takes Bucky by the wrists.

“ _ You are not, _ ” Steve hisses right back. “You’re the best part of my life and I want you to understand how much it hurts me to hear you talk about someone I love like that.”

Fuck. Now there are tears. The words barely register at first. They don’t make any sense. The heat in his wrists doesn’t make any sense. He stares at his bare, shaking hands and his mind and heart both skip a beat: Steve’s hands are wrapped around them. Skin to skin, like hope and fire. “I’m not—you can’t, you shouldn’t.”

“Don’t I get to decide that?” Steve pulls their hands towards him to touch their intermingled fingertips to his lips. “Do you think I’m the kind of person who loves disgusting things?”

“That’s not fair,” Bucky sniffs.

“Do you?” Steve presses.

Bucky shakes his head and gives him a meek, “No.”

“Just because you’ve got problems doesn’t mean you’re revolting, Bucky,” Steve charges on. “Just because they treated you like you weren’t a person doesn’t mean you aren’t one. What they did to you doesn’t make you unworthy of love. What does Dr. Samson tell you?”

Bucky sniffs again. “I deserve good things,” he mutters. Someday he might believe it.

“Do you think I deserve good things?”

“Asshole, of course you do,” Bucky snorts, glancing up to glower accusingly at Steve. He’s so close.

_ My God, it’s true _ , a voice echoes.

“Good. Buck. You’re one of those good things we agree I deserve.” Steve’s face is so earnest it breaks his ruined old heart.

“You deserve so much better than me,” Bucky whispers.

Steve closes his eyes for a moment. “You don’t get it. If there’s better out there, I don’t want it. I just want you, here. Can I have that?”

Tears blur his vision, but he nods. He can’t deny Steve anything, even when it hurts.

Then Steve asks, careful as anything, “Can I touch you?”

Bucky sobs. Something else breaks inside him. “God,  _ please _ .”

And finally Steve’s gentle hands are on him, touching his face, petting his hair, swiping tears away. 

_ It’s okay, I’m here. You can trust me. _

“The truth is,” Steve tells him, kissing his knuckles, “the question you should be asking is how I can stand to look away. You’ve always been a handsome bastard.”

Bucky doesn’t say anything. Maybe someday he’ll agree to humor Steve. Maybe someday he’ll believe it too. But for now, he’s beyond words, soaking in the glow of skin contact after all this lonely time, trying to ignore the trickle of disturbing memories that try to drown him still.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Touch As Sweet As](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14426775) by [Quarra](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Quarra/pseuds/Quarra)




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